Missed You Enchiladas

This is my version of a turkey enchilada recipe from a Cooking Light cookbook that my in-laws gave me a few years before my husband and I were married. During my pre-veggie years this was one of my favorite recipes, but it took quite a while to make. It has taken me some time to figure out what to replace the real meat with, but it really is a very adaptive recipe that contains more veggies than the original! I normally don't like meals with huge ingredient lists so I've tried to break it up so it is easy to see what can be swapped with something else. Only five of the ingredients listed were things we normally don't have on hand in our pantry, there is just a lot of seasonings. It is very easy to make the spice as mild or as hot as you prefer, my version is more on the very mild side because I can't tolerate a lot of hot spice. If the burger and the cheese parts are already done it goes together rather quickly.

Okara "Burger" (or any meat replacement that equals about 3 C.):

2 C. Soy or Almond Okara (the stuff leftover from making soymilk or almond milk)

1 TBS. Poultry Seasoning

1/2 tsp. Garlic powder

1/2 tsp. Onion powder

1/2 Seasoned Salt

1 tsp. dried Dill Weed

1/2 tsp. Lemon Pepper seasoning

2 TBS. Nutritional Yeast (powdered)

3/4 C. Vital Wheat Gluten Flour (you might need a TBS or two more depending on how wet the okara still is)

Canola Oil or Pan Spray (to coat the pan and prevent sticking)

Spinach Salsa Filling:

1 (24 oz. jar) chunky Salsa (I used mild but I might use medium next time)

1 (1 lb. bag) frozen, chopped Spinach that has been thawed and drained

1 container Tofutti Cream Cheese

1 (15 oz.) can Tomato Sauce (or Enchilada sauce)

3/4 tsp. sweet Paprika

1 1/2 tsp. Old Bay Seasoning

1 1/2 tsp. ground Cumin

1 tsp. ground Black Pepper

2 tsp. Chili powder

Nacho Cheese Sauce (or any leftover cheese sauce* or grated vegan cheese):

1/4 C. all purpose Flour

1/4 to 1/3 C. Nutritional Yeast (powdered)

3/4 tsp. Salt

1/4 tsp. Onion Powder

1/4 tsp. Chili Powder 

1/4 tsp. Garlic Powder

1/8 tsp. Mustard Powder

1/8 tsp. ground Cumin

1 C. Soymilk (plain, unsweetened)

6 good shakes of Tabasco Sauce

1 TBS. Canola Oil

Other:

1/2 - 1 C. Corn kernels (canned or frozen)

12-16 (6 inch) corn Tortillas

1 (14 oz.) can diced Tomatoes, drained (or 3/4 C. fresh)

1 head Iceburg Lettuce, thinly sliced

1 head Red Leaf Lettuce, thinly sliced

1 can sliced Olives (optional)

Tofutti Sour Cream (optional)

Fresh Cilantro, chopped (optional, for garnish)

Directions:

1.) Heat a large skillet on medium high heat along with the canola oil or pan spray.

2.) In a medium mixing bowl, combine all the ingredients for the okara burger together before adding the gluten flour. Once the gluten flour is added, mix throughly so the gluten will start to develop and hold everything together. Kneed a few times in the bowl to further develop the gluten.

3.) Cook okara mix until it starts to brown, stirring and turning occasionally to cook evenly. (see pic at bottom) Once cooked, set aside in a different container and reheat pan.

4.) Add all the Spinach Salsa filling ingredients to the pan (making sure spinach is thawed and drained), cook until the Tofutti cream cheese is melted and everything is throughly mixed.

5.) Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Assembly:

6.) In a greased 9x13 inch baking dish (I put it into a 7x11 inch dish and it just barely fit):

Fast Method-

A.)Place a layer of tortillas, 1/3 of the okara burger, 1/3 of the spinach filling, and 1/3 of the Corn. Repeat for second and third layers. Top with diced tomatoes.

Traditional Method-

B.) Combine Okara burger, Spinach Salsa filling, and corn together, mixing throughly. Heat a cast iron pan on Medium high heat. Doing one at a time, oat both sides of a tortilla with cooking spray. Cook for 15 seconds, each side. While still hot, fill tortilla with 1/12 of the filling, roll up and place seam side down in the pan. Repeat with remaining tortillas. Top with diced tomatoes. 

7.) Bake for 30 minutes, or until throughly heated.

8.) Once done baking, let sit for 5 minutes

9.) While the enchiladas are baking, cut up lettuce and toss in a large bowl.

10.) Whisk all the dry ingredients for the Nacho Cheese Sauce together in a small pan. Slowly pour a little of the milk into the pan while whisking (to prevent lumping), continue whisking until all the milk is mixed in. Add oil and cook on medium high heat, continually whisking, until thickened. Remove from heat and mix in Tabasco sauce.

11.) Place a cup (or so) of lettuce on each serving plate. Place 1/6 (or 2 if rolled) of the enchiladas on top of lettuce. Top with olives, sour cream, cheese sauce, and cilantro. Enjoy!

Serves 6

Meat Alternatives:

-Sautéed Peppers, onions and Crimini mushrooms

-1 can (approx. 2 C.) each of cooked Garbanzo, Black, or Red beans and make a 3 layer casserole, using one can on the bottom of each layer

-any other kind of seitan, sauteed tofu, refried beans, TVP, or prepackaged meat replacement 

Cheese Alternatives:

-Grated Block Uncheese

-Sliced Vegan Cheese

-Any leftover vegan Cheese Sauce *(just add the chili powder, Tabasco, and cumin to sauce)

Browned Okara Burger

Mrs. Claus' Favorite Parfait

It's hard to tell, but the "white" parts actually are a very light pink

I've had quite some time now to get used to our new soymilk maker and I'm just as thrilled with it as I originally was. We have no severe shortage of uses for soymilk but this was something I thought would be fun to try. It's been a while since I've had homemade pudding and decided that I'd make some tonight.

Just before Thanksgiving I found out about Ricemellow Creme, even though I had noticed it at our local health foods store a few times before. It wasn't until I had seen the reviews about it on Vegan Essentials did I really become interested in trying it. A fair amount of the reviews mentioned that when they opened their tub of Ricemellow that it was tan and had a bunch of syrup on the bottom, looking nothing like the white cloud drawn on the front of the carton. (It melts when it stays too warm.) Luckily another reviewer mentioned that it just needed to be re-whipped because something that looks like tan foam is not appetizing. So I dumped my Ricemellow (that had at least 1 inch of syrup on the bottom of the container) into my Kitchen Aid mixer with the whisk attachment and turned it on full blast. In about 5 minutes I had something that looked convincingly like the stuff you find in a jar of traditional marshmallow creme.

I've had a tub of Ricemellow in the cupboard intending to make a batch of vegan "Rice Crispy Treats" but it kept tempting me to play with it. This stuff is seriously fun, and it tastes good too! I've used it in hot chocolate and I don't have to lament not having marshmallows anymore. I was just in a seriously cooking mood today and happened to catch this recipe trotting across my brain.

Peppermint Ricemellow Creme:

3 Peppermint Candy Canes

1 TBS. Powdered Sugar

1 tub Ricemellow Creme

Chocolate Pudding (this is NOT instant):

6 TBS Cocoa powder

1/2 C. granulated Sugar

5 TBS Cornstarch

2 3/4 C. Soymilk

1 1/2 tsp Vanilla

1.) Unwrap and break up candy canes into approx. 1 inch pieces and place into food processor with a cutting blade, then add the powdered sugar. Process into a fine candy cane powder. I used a fine metal sieve to "screen" the powder through and had to run the larger chunks through the food processor again two more times until it was almost all powdered. I ended up with about 1 TBS. fine bits and close to 1/4 C. candy cane powder. Reserve the fine bits for garnish.

2.) Dump the tub of Ricemellow into a medium size bowl (or the bowl of a stand mixer and use whisk attachment) and add candy cane powder (1/4 C.) to Ricemellow. Beat until very stiff and fluffy. Place into a quart size Ziplock bag, seal, & set aside.

3.) Place remaining ingredients (except soymilk and vanilla) into medium size pan. Slowly whisk in soymilk, making sure to whisk out any lumps. Cook on medium hight heat, stirring continually until pudding has thickened. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Cover top of pudding with plastic wrap (directly on top of the pudding to prevent a film forming that would make the pudding lumpy) and refrigerate until chilled.

4.) Snip off the corner (about 1/8 to 1/4 inch) of the plastic bag to make the Ricemellow easy to use. Remove plastic film from the top of the pudding and stir to smooth out the pudding. In dessert dishes, layer pudding with Peppermint Ricemellow (or just blop a serving of the pudding in the dish and top with Ricemellow). Garnish with a tiny pinch of cocoa powder and the remaining fine bits of the candy canes before serving.

Note: This is a very sweet dessert and there was about 3 servings in the glass in the picture, unless you have a severe sweet tooth. The glass is about 7 to 8 inches high so a little bit definitely goes a long way.

Suggestions:

Using Almond milk might make a slightly richer pudding because of the almond oil.

The granulated sugar should be able to be reduced to 1/3 C. and still be sweet.

For the Chocoholic- Add 1 to 1 1/2 C. semi-sweet or unsweetened (vegan) chocolate chips/chunks to the hot pudding after taking it off the burner.

Any leftover Peppermint Ricemellow can be used on hot chocolate!

Mmmm... Peppermint Ricemellow Creme...

Presenting... My soy milk maker!

Here's good ol' Bessie.

Fresh warm milk, straight from the... bean.

I really like soy milk but I was really getting tired of having to buy it so often, for exaggerated prices, and then still having to pay for the added garbage. I would buy plain, unsweetened soy milk because I really didn't see the point of all the added sugar and my husband couldn't eat it because he is diabetic. I originally started drinking it when I was still a lacto-ovo vegetarian when it started to dawn on me that my body was not processing dairy well (later to realize I have a dairy allergy as well as being lactose intolerant!) All I had been looking for was something similar to standard milk, not a soy drink that would be strange to cook with.

Even when I was still buying the soy milk in the cartons, I always felt like I was having to keep track of how much I was using so I could portion it out and all the micromanaging was driving me batty. I sat down and figured out that if I was using soy milk at the same rate if I made it myself that I was currently, it would only take four months for a soy milk maker to pay for itself and would last years. Sure it takes time to process it, but going to the store, dealing with people and their stress is definitely more detrimental to my everyday stability than making a gallon of soy milk every four days or once a week is. This was simply a no brainer.

The reality? I'm totally stoked and LOVE it! For me the soy milk is a tiny bit more watery than what I had been buying, but other than that there isn't any difference that I can tell. I didn't count on the unexpected bonuses:

#1: It saves more money than I expected because of #2!
#2: the super high quality OKARA!!

Okara, how do I love thee...

Okara is definitely different than slimy, green okra.

(Soy) Okara is low in fat, high in fiber, and also contains protein, calcium, iron, and riboflavin. It contains 76 to 80% moisture, 20 to 24% solids and 3.5 to 4.0% protein. On a dry weight basis okara contains 24% protein, 8 to 15% fats,and 12 to 14.5% crude fiber. It contains 17% of the protein from the original soybeans.

-Okara listing from Wikipedia

#3: Not contributing to the cattle industry. I really do not get preachy about this sort of thing, but I was rather shocked about the fact that okara from commercially made soy milk (that a LOT of vegans would not live without) goes towards cattle feed. I'm happy knowing that it's one less thing I'm doing to reduce the negative impact that I leave on the world from simply making my own soy milk!
#4: Fresh hot coco that is WONDERFUL!

Look at that foam!

#5: Almond Milk! I had never had this before and I rather like it. My husband really doesn't prefer soy milk or even regular milk straight (to drink or in cold cereal, etc.) but said that he even likes to eat almond milk with his cereal better than eating the dry cereal like he has for years.
#6: Almond okara! Similarly almost tasteless like the soy okara but I have found one recipe so far that is a tiny bit better with the almond okara.

I cannot fathom why some people throw it out! It is sooooooo easy to use and I have been working on some recipes that I intend to post once I get some more of the kinks out. We use the okara so much that my husband said that we need to find recipes that use a lot of soy milk so we can have more okara to use. It has a texture very similar to reconstituted instant potatoes (but a bit more grainy.) I was actually a bit afraid of buying a soy milk maker because I had made soy milk 'by hand' with the blender once and it was so vile that no one could use it. Before then I had no idea that soy milk could be so bitter. This was also my first experience with okara but it was exceedingly chunky compared to the silky okara that I get now.

The Conclusion? I really love my SoyaJoy. it is VERY easy to use and makes high quality soy milk, almond milk, and okara. I simply do not regret buying it even though the initial $125 seemed like a lot. The okara has helped me replace the expensive veggie patties and saves us a fair amount from just those as well.

MAM Whole Grain Pancake Mix

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MAM Whole Grain Pancake Mix

I really love the convenience of the prepackaged mixes, but hate the prices, sugar, and all the preservatives. This is just as easy to use as the store mixes and takes less time to mix up than a trip to the store for the fancy box! Using your own reusable storage containers also means you will save on the garbage bill as well! We use this mix enough that it's just as easy to make a double batch.

3 1/2 c. Whole Wheat Flour
3 1/4 c. White Flour
3/4 c. Sugar or Splenda
1 TBS. Baking Soda
1 TBS. Salt

Directions:
1.) In a large bowl, mix all the ingredients together thoroughly with a wire whisk.
2.) Store in a 10 cup container with airtight seal or gallon Ziploc type bag. The rigid containers are easier to measure out of, but the gallon size bags are quick and easy if you have them.
3.) Label with Use By date (6 months from the date made) and contents. Store in a cool, dry place.

Makes enough for approximately 5 batches of pancakes.

Adapted from the Make-A-Mix Cookbook by Karine Eliason, Nevada Harward, and Madeline Westover

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Mmmmm.... Food.....

Comfort food of Pancakes, Hashbrowns, and... What is that?

Picture it: You wake up one morning and it already feels like a good day. The thought of breakfast tumbles into your mind, accompanied with rarely felt memories of Saturday Morning and Cartoons. Your thoughts gather a bit more, like fluffy white clouds bumping into one another, hearing long ago shuffling in the kitchen as your mother works on breakfast. Saturday mornings sometimes meant golden pancakes with a special crunchy ring on the underside edge. It was like getting dessert for breakfast once you added homemade maple syrup on top of the buttery pancakes. Sitting next to them on the plate is a golden and crispy hashbrown decorated with a blop of ketchup. To complete the mental stroll down memory lane adding an ice cold glass of orange juice and a couple of pieces of bacon...

Wait! That's not vegan!!

This is what my mind went through last Tuesday. The recollection and memory of Saturday morning and cartoons was the strongest I can recall in about 15 years. My husband and I frequently have pancakes, but this particular morning I wanted Mom Pancakes. To me that means instead of using our non-stick electric griddle that I'd use our new cast iron pans and cook them in Earth Balance. Don't get me wrong, I really do like the healthier pancakes regularly, but for some reason today I was really missing not being able to crunch on the 'deep fried' pancake ring on the bottom of the pancake.

I must have been on a good luck streak that day because we also had orange juice in the freezer (I try to avoid premade orange stuff because of a serious bout of hives from some cheap orange juice that didn't state that it contained pineapple) as well as a new bottle of Mapleine flavoring in the cupboard that I previously hadn't bought in years.

Personally I have been very timid at trying tempeh, for one thing it just looks questionable. After doing some research online about how to spot spoiled tempeh and at least felt better about knowing it was supposed to look like that. I read a quote somewhere a few years ago that said pretty much you either like tempeh, or you don't. Fermented soybean patties. Sounds horrifying to tell you the truth. Being well reassured that I did not end up with a spoiled packet I decided to attempt to make tempeh bacon. The tempeh itself was just fine, although a bit crumbly, but the recipe I worked from was really lacking and really needs some work before it's publishable. Perhaps I will just stick with tofu bacon.

Hashbrowns growing up were in their entirety, grated russet potatoes, cooked in a patty shape in a hot cast iron skillet with bacon grease. For obvious reasons that wasn't going to work, but also I've always had the problem of the middles not cooking all the way. So I looked into a recipe that seemed promising, more like latkes, but because of my husband's severe allergy to onions and pepper we had to leave them out. They were mostly alright (although they do look pretty) but I think there was too much flour in them and leaving out the onions and peppers really affected them I think. So I won't be posting those recipes, but here is a couple I will post!

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Whole Grain Pancakes

Cinnamon and nutmeg added to the batter give the pancakes a very Autumn flavor that I just adore. This recipe looks a lot more complicated than it really is. My husband and I love this recipe and the flax seeds go with it just wonderfully! I often dump other things into the batter (extracts, spices, nuts, fruit) for whatever I'm feeling like that day. Feel free to have fun with it. Very versatile and the additional bonus is that these pancakes freeze really well! This is a slight variation on the one I posted on Vegweb in March.

1 1/2 cup unsweetened Soy Milk
1 1/2 teaspoon Apple Cider Vinegar
1 Flax Egg (2 1/2 tablespoons ground Flax Seed + 3 tablespoons Water whisked together)
1 1/2 cup dry MAM Whole Grain Pancake Mix
1 to 1 1/2 tsp. Cinnamon
1 to 1 1/2 tsp. Nutmeg
2 tablespoons Canola Oil
3 TBS Earth Balance

Directions:

1.) In a small cup or bowl, mix together soy milk and vinegar then set aside.
2.) In another small cup or bowl whisk together the ground flax seed and water until thickened (usually takes me 2-3 minutes.)
3.) In a medium size bowl whisk together soy milk, flax egg, dry mix, cinnamon, nutmeg, and oil until combined. Small amounts of dry mix or water can be added to attain desired consistency.
4.) Heat a 10 inch cast iron skillet on medium heat with about a TBS. of Earth Balance to coat the pan.
5.) Measure 1/3 cup batter for 3 pancakes in a pan and cook until the outer bubbles on the raw side of the pancake have popped and not reformed but the inner bubbles are still there, flip, and cook the second side until light golden brown.
6.) Repeat with remaining batter and Earth Balance.
7.) Serve with your favorite toppings!

Makes approx. 9 pancakes

Veganized from the Make-A-Mix Cookbook by Karine Eliason, Nevada Harward, and Madeline Westover

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Low Sugar Maple Syrup

I am very well aware of the fact that there is commercial sugar-free syrups available but for this nostalgic Saturday I wanted to see if I could make homemade sugar free syrup to be close to what my mom taught me to make when I was a kid, but with my own twist.

2 c. Water
2 TBS. Cornstarch
1 c. Splenda
1/2 c. Imitation Honey
1/2 tsp. Canola Oil
1 TBS. Mapleine
1/2 tsp. Vanilla

Directions:
1.) In a medium sauce pan whisk together cornstarch and water until all lumps have been removed, then add Splenda, imitation honey, and oil. Stir until imitation honey thoroughly dissolves.
2.) Cook on medium high heat until it begins to boil, cook for 5 minutes, whisking continually to prevent scorching.
3.) Stir in Mapleine and vanilla and let cool for 15 minutes in the freezer. The syrup should thicken up a bit once it cools.
4.) Serve with pancakes, french toast, or vegan danish pancakes!

Makes 2 1/2 c. of syrup

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I told my hubby that this is what I want for my birthday breakfast in October! It was one of the best I've had in a long time to trigger so many long buried happy memories. And a special thanks to our baby girl, Dimples, for being so silly. (although she almost looks more like a furry worm with a gaping maw!)

Take me home, country roads...

Tom Turkey and Rammy Kin sitting on my fabric cabinet.

I was born and grew up in a small town. Life was quiet and relaxed overall, the cattle ranchers and other farmers held onto their western roots. Every Labor Day weekend they hold the “world famous” county fair, parade, and rodeo. It was one of the candidates for being Washington State's capitol, with a college that is now Central Washington University, and even the Governor's castle until a fire burnt down a large portion of the town in 1889.

Being a country girl isn't about what you do, its about who you are. It has taken me a lot of years to realize that fact, because I have never lived on a farm. My mother was a student at the university to build a future for herself and her four children, working, and taking care of her mother who lived at one of the local nursing homes. My three older siblings were born in the larger town where I now live, but I was born in my beloved home town. I think my mom was never quite sure what to make of her tomboy little girl who went around chewing on twigs, running barefoot whenever she could, and digging up earthworms because they were cute. Eventually she started calling me an "Ellensburger" on occasion because I was more like the country folk in town than her citified self knew what to do with.

Over twenty years have passed since then, sixteen of those years I have lived in an overwhelming larger city that is slowly taking over the surrounding hills. There were acres of orchards when we first moved here, now I think there are two very small ones. Two weeks ago when my husband and I were heading home on the city bus the driver commented to another passenger that he could deal with a lot of kinds of weather, just as long as the wind didn’t blow. As simple as that was, it shocked me to the core. I had just been thinking of how nice it was to have a real breeze for the first time that I recall this year. It was comfortable and felt really nice. Most people who move to Ellensburg quickly comment on the wind, mostly because its hard to ignore. I remember walking home from school when I was twelve and the wind was blowing enough that I could significantly lean into it and not fall over. I have never been a skinny person and it almost knocked me over a few times in that walk. Needless to say I thought it was great fun (although a bit cold) and still makes me giggle.

Being in the country to me evokes the feeling of wide open spaces, blue skies that stretch to the mountains that hardly poke up in the distance. It’s a type of freedom, of spirit and heart, happiness and the feeling of being home. When I’m there, I never want to be anywhere else in the world. Sometimes over the years I’ve worried that somehow the country part of me would be overtaken by the city girl. But from what my heart says it is as alive and well as it has always been.

I am a relatively new vegan (less than six months now) but I had been a lacto-ovo vegetarian for a little over three years. I finally made the shift because of multiple allergies that I was so tired of being paranoid of eating the wrong things and ending up with hives, or just extremely uncomfortable. I’m happy and excited to have a small arsenal of pure vegan cookbooks filling my shelves to learn new techniques from, discover new strange ingredients, and enjoy food that I had never even heard of in my cattle ranching hometown. I’ve gone through the phase that I think most of us do once we chose a meat-free diet of buying lots of prepackaged foods resembling familiar meals. My country girl brain is tired of spending too much and feeling like nothing has really changed after eating faux chicken sandwiches for a week, although I actually haven’t done that in quite a few months. At the same time it is hard not to feel like most vegan recipes use huge ingredient lists of often rather ‘fancy’ stuff, almost like having five star dinning at home without the bonus of it being made for you. Personally, I like simple foods, not bland food however, a pantry that is stocked and organized, a full freezer that I actually know what’s in it. I love convenience foods but hate the price tags and the numerous preservatives. Hey, I don’t want to be mummified while I’m still living!

My mother knows I love her a lot, but she’s the hardest on me about being vegan. I know she thinks she’s just gently teasing me, but I get royally tired of her thinking I simply eat weird foods. On the plus side however, she’s the first to want to try whatever I’ll let her and tells me if she likes it or not. Now if I could just get her to quit calling it ‘vague-en’ (it’s only vague to you mom…)

"Its Ellensburg, its Ellensburg, its Ellensburg Washington! A pretty little city in the center of the state, its Ellensburg Washington!"

So sit for a spell and see what vegan comfort foods are brewing in my kitchen!